The Peterborough Timbermen ended their 2018 home stand with a 16-10 win over the Whitby Steelhawks on Sunday night at the Memorial Centre.
The win improves the Timbermen’s record to 2-1 as they now move home venues to Children’s Arena in Oshawa for the remainder of the season.
The Timbermen split the weekend, losing to the Oshawa Outlaws 12-9 on Saturday night, but the weekend was a success overall. An estimated 800 fans took in the two games while members of the ALL’s U13, U18 and U20 divisions saw floor time during the day at the Mem Centre. A great team of dedicated lacrosse volunteers came together to put on the spectacular weekend.
“We’ll take what we can and hope for better things down the road,” said head coach and general manager Joe Sullivan on the Timbermen’s schedule. “It was great to get to play in front of Peterborough so early and get a lot of the local guys out there to see their families. It was a great thing, a great experience but we’ll have to wait till next year to see it again.”
The Timbermen went up 4-1 after the first quarter on the strength of a hat-trick from assistant captain Joel Matthews.
Chris Attwood, in his first Timbermen game, brought the score to 5-1 early in the second. Whitby fought back and got to 5-3 before Sullivan called a timeout and calmed his troops down.
“I don’t like to use a timeout unless we’re trying to draw something up but I thought that was the time to let them know that if we cleaned things up and just played smarter we’d get through it,” said Sullivan.
Against Oshawa, the Timbermen gave up a 5-1 lead and eventually lost momentum and the game. Not so, on Sunday. The Timbermen scored five in a row after Sullivan’s timeout to lead 10-3 at the half. Attwood scored two more, Nick Karam picked up a pair and Matthews scored a statement goal on a wraparound from behind the net on the power play.
“I’ve played lacrosse with Attwood since I was 10 years old and we’ve been running that play since then so as soon as I saw him on the point with the ball I went behind the net and just raised my stick in the air,” Matthews described. “I already knew I was going to do it before I did it but it helps being 6’3 with a long reach and I don’t think the other team expected it to happen so I just tried to be creative and it went in.”
Matthews has already had a positive impact on the Timbermen and Sullivan was excited to get Attwood in the lineup too. Sullivan coached Attwood this past summer in Tyendinaga and was happy to get the highly-touted player in a trade for Caleb Wiles.
“I know what he can bring when he gets focused,” Sullivan said. “Tonight wasn’t actually a focused game for him. He put the ball in the net a few times but it’s everything else that he does that has to be cleaned up.”
Attwood plays the game hard and with passion that sometimes results in undisciplined play, and he visited the penalty box a couple of times on Sunday. Sullivan is hopeful that having Matthews around will help Attwood focus.
“That’s the hope, that he can kind of mentor him to be an even better ball player that he already is. With them travelling together from St. Catharines I think that’s going to rub off on him.”
Matthews knows he’s got a lot of responsibility on his shoulders.
“The A was unexpected but I’m definitely grateful for it,” he said. “The guys on this team are pretty young and asking questions. I’m just trying to taking things I’ve learned in the NLL and the Mann Cup run in the summer and trying to help the team out.”
Tempers flared in the third quarter as familiarity started to breed contempt. A good portion of the Steelhawks’ roster had Peterborough connections, like Cam Milligan, Dylan Hutchison and Parker Sands. Colton Armstrong had a goal in the quarter and also fought former teammate Garrett Lewis.
Justin Kulla led the attack in the fourth quarter with two goals. Great saves from goaltender Brett Perras kept the Steelhawks at bay the rest of the game.
Sullivan is extremely pleased with his team.
“We’re talking about things we can clean up to get even better whereas last year we were just pushing to compete,” he said. “The talent is there and the experience is there. We had a great effort last year to develop players. This year, we’ve developed them, and we went out and got the talent that we need to compete for a championship.”
Cam Milligan and Austin Murphy each had three goals for the Steelhawks. Lukas Coote suffered the loss in goal.
“We would have liked both wins (this weekend) but we’ll take one,” said Matthews. “Everyone’s still getting to know each other and building chemistry, but the coaching staff is doing a great job. Everyone’s on board, buying in, and I think this year’s going to be much better.”
